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Saturday, June 19, 2010

It's funny doing this for the fourth year running (or maybe it's 5?? I've lost count!) I've been very determined to finally actually jog the whole thing (I won't class what I do as running, it's barely more than a walk!) and in being so determined I've kind of turned it into a thing about me........ which is just all wrong.

You see it's been a challenge, I don't enjoy running, I don't feel good afterwards, I don't enjoy the training, I'm not good at it, I don't feel very natural (too many years ice-skating, I don't expect to have to put so much effort into moving forwards quickly)...... and there you have it, it's all about me...

So I tried to change it, when I didn't want to train, I remembered that people with cancer still have to get up every morning and go to work/take kids to school/be a friend/be a member of a family/live the day in whatever way it needs to be lived. I have a choice, I can wait til I feel more like it, but that really isn't the point is it? You see it seems to me that it's a lot about raising the money for charity, but it's also about doing something that maybe isn't as pleasurable as you'd like it to be.

Someone once told me that you should not criticise or empathise with someone until you have walked a mile in their shoes. Now I'd heard the criticise bit, but not the other...... It seemed odd, surely empathy is a positive emotion in a way, supportive, helpful?? - But maybe this tiny tiny thing I have done has made me realise the truth of that statement. Of course you want to try to share someone's feelings and try to identify when they are going through any kind of crap. But perhaps it just isn't that easy. This little effort of getting up in a morning (not even early I might add) and going for a training run when I don't feel like it, is so unbelievably far short of living a single day with cancer........ It's true, I can never have empathy, I do not understand the magnitude of the feeling, not for those who have the illness or for those that are trying to help family who have it.

So, what I can do is be supportive, be there to be leant on, to be cried on, or laughed with, to fill days with sunshine ,smiles and hugs as far as possible, and in all honesty to not try to understand...... because I can't.

So I will race tomorrow, with a smile, and a lightness of foot (hahahaha, if you believe that.......). I have raised a fantastic amount of money, and that will change lives...I run for my best friend, for family, and for a number of blog and forum friends who are either living with cancer or have lost family to cancer. It's not about how fast I do it, or whether I beat my other times, It's just about doing it....... me and about 2,999 other women! ;)

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Who am I?

I am Auntie Noo, as named by my gorgeous nephews. Auntie Noo has become my alter ego and internet prescence!
My views here are my own. Sometimes honest, sometimes personal. Just a place to write my musings.